Photo: Paul Kagame/Flickr
Since recent times, Ethiopia’s progress in various social, economic and political spheres has created a demanding society that pursues additional development and quality good governance. As the demands are complicated, there is a need for complex and multifaceted mechanism to respond to them.
In fact, the protests that are meant to showcase the grievances of the public have not been peaceful and resulted in loss of lives and damage of public and private properties. This led the incumbent to declare a state of emergency to prevent further crisis.
The ruling party has been engaged in deep reform to address the demands of the public. The party has said it needs time to address to all the demands. While it is engaged in deeply reforming itself and taking several initiatives to widen political space, for instance by releasing and pardoning imprisoned politicians and other individuals, it has also asserted its readiness to engage in dialogue.
True, it is timely that all members of the society including the youth, scholars, religious leaders, political party members, and representatives of civic societies should take part in a constructive dialogue, reach consensus and resolve the ongoing national issues in a sustainable manner.
In fact, in any given society, conflict is a normal part of life. It is natural for humans to hold and form different opinions about reality which results in disagreement and conflict. In social life, there is always conflict of interest which makes the occurrence of disagreement, dispute and conflict inevitable. Hence, conflict is seen as a normal aspect of social life. What matters the most is the mechanism set to handle it once it arises and how it is managed, resolved, settled or transformed.
It should be underlined that developing the culture of dialogue, discussion, consensus and reconciliation makes it easier to deal with conflicts. Particularly, dialogues can be viewed as one means of dealing constructively with conflicts because as the saying goes ‘As long as you are talking, you cannot be shooting’.
Having dialogue and discussion between conflicting parties to overcome their differences and create mutual understanding is the most acceptable and civilized way of preventing or resolving conflicts in social life.
In a diversified society like ours where diversified views are held, there is no better way of handling differences and the resulting conflicts than through practical discourses.
As it is a critical time in the history of the nation, it should be underlined that in pursuing dialogue to come up with solution to the ongoing problems, there is no room for politics of hatred, polarization and extremism. Instead, it is time to promote tolerance, diversity, civility and the politics of “give and take” or compromise.
Above all, it is time for Ethiopians to demonstrate the sentiment of civic republicanism, an approach to republican government which emphasizes active and constructive engagement by citizens and spirit of patriotism irrespective of religion, political affiliation, and ethnic lines. Everybody needs to be open minded and engaged in a civilized dialogue to come up with a civilized and win-win solution.
The Federal Republic needs to take lessons from the unfortunate fates of Libya, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria and other countries that end up in endless civil conflict. Because of zero sum politics, these countries could not engage in dialogue and be able to make compromises so that every conflicting party comes out as a winner. We have to be able to avoid that kind of scenario by involving in constructive dialogues.